TY - JOUR AU - Zhang, Bo AU - Deng, Kaiwen AU - Shen, Jie AU - Cai, Lingrui AU - Ratitch, Bohdana AU - Fu, Haoda AU - Guan, Yuanfang PY - 2022 DA - 2022/3/1 TI - Enabling Eating Detection in a Free-living Environment: Integrative Engineering and Machine Learning Study JO - J Med Internet Res SP - e27934 VL - 24 IS - 3 KW - deep learning KW - eating KW - digital watch AB - Background: Monitoring eating is central to the care of many conditions such as diabetes, eating disorders, heart diseases, and dementia. However, automatic tracking of eating in a free-living environment remains a challenge because of the lack of a mature system and large-scale, reliable training set. Objective: This study aims to fill in this gap by an integrative engineering and machine learning effort and conducting a large-scale study in terms of monitoring hours on wearable-based eating detection. Methods: This prospective, longitudinal, passively collected study, covering 3828 hours of records, was made possible by programming a digital system that streams diary, accelerometer, and gyroscope data from Apple Watches to iPhones and then transfers the data to the cloud. Results: On the basis of this data collection, we developed deep learning models leveraging spatial and time augmentation and inferring eating at an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.825 within 5 minutes in the general population. In addition, the longitudinal follow-up of the study design encouraged us to develop personalized models that detect eating behavior at an AUC of 0.872. When aggregated to individual meals, the AUC is 0.951. We then prospectively collected an independent validation cohort in a different season of the year and validated the robustness of the models (0.941 for meal-level aggregation). Conclusions: The accuracy of this model and the data streaming platform promises immediate deployment for monitoring eating in applications such as diabetic integrative care. SN - 1438-8871 UR - https://www.jmir.org/2022/3/e27934 UR - https://doi.org/10.2196/27934 UR - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35230244 DO - 10.2196/27934 ID - info:doi/10.2196/27934 ER -